


Vaughn, New Mexico

by khaleesian



Series: On the road [1]
Category: Fast and the Furious Series, Supernatural
Genre: April Showers Challenge, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-04
Updated: 2011-04-04
Packaged: 2017-10-17 14:41:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/177934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khaleesian/pseuds/khaleesian





	Vaughn, New Mexico

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eviljy](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=eviljy).



_September 9th, 2005_

_Vaughn, New Mexico. Day._

It sounded good when he thought it, so he said it out loud, “Vaughn, New Mexico. Day.”

He glanced in the rearview and continued, narrating in bursts, Rod Serling-style. “A lonely man in a lonely town. Dean Winchester is traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead….”

He ducked his head and muttered, “Dodd’s Gas and More.”

He’d spent last night in Roswell and hung around for a few hours too long, sort of futilely hoping that it’d be distractive. It wasn’t. It was just another dusty little town. Local aliens all keeping a low profile. Aliens would’ve been cool just for a change, some aliens might distract him from this squirrelly, sweaty feeling that he couldn’t seem to shake.

The Impala rocked him gently as he pulled up under the awning and sighed to himself. “Dodd, I came for the gas, but I’m staying for the ‘and more.’”

*************

Dodd’s sold RC cola. Dean crowed a little internally and picked himself out a can. He turned back to survey the tight-packed shelves crowded with trucker staples. He fished out a Slim Jim and chewed it meditatively while he shopped. Pork rinds. Packet of Ho-Hos. Box of Milk Duds. Sammy liked Milk Duds, or at least he had.

Be good to see Sammy again. The front door jingled, but Dean barely registered it. All of a sudden, he couldn’t remember Sam’s candy of choice and it troubled him vaguely. A box of something that rattled, but that could be Junior Mints or Raisinets or….

It didn’t matter. There were details that _mattered_ and details that didn’t and Dean was pretty sure that there wasn’t some deep significance to his momentary blankness. He needed to focus, needed to keep his eyes on the prize. Or something.

He rescued a crinkly packet of Twinkies and took his fistfuls of calories up to the counter. The girl working the register looked at him round-eyed and then for some reason looked out the door toward the pumps. She almost stuttered as she said, “You f-f-find everything you needed?”

He gave her his best rakish grin, just enough to make her stomach flutter. “You bet, darlin’. This’ll be all for me, plus thirty five on number…” he looked out to where the Impala was crouched. “Three.”

She was chewing her lower lip in an appealingly shy way. “You don’t have to pay ‘fore you pump, you know.”

Given a line like that, he raised one eyebrow. But the girl just blinked at him and nervously straightened her nametag. If she’d been older and sassier, he’d have leaned one elbow on the counter and started to flirt in earnest. But on a closer look, she radiated sincere innocence and it made him slightly...unsettled. She watched him avidly, twisting her hair around her finger while he signed his receipt.

The sun had almost physical weight by now. Morning was going, going, almost gone.

He tossed his bag of junk food on the front seat of the Impala and tilted the gas cover open. It screeched a little and he wondered if the can of WD-40 rolling around in the trunk was completely empty. Dean jammed the nozzle in firmly while the pump vibrated a little as it primed.

“Hey,” a disembodied voice floated from the other side of the pumps. “Sweet ride.”

“Thanks,” Dean grunted shortly, angling himself to make eye contact so he could give the proper acknowledging salute to an admirer of his baby girl.

 _And whoa._ Now **this** was interesting.

The alien had arrived. This guy wasn’t from Vaughn, New Mexico and maybe he’d just slid from the sky on a fucking lightning bolt. Dude was easily the best-looking guy Dean had ever seen outside of the mirror. No wonder counter girl had looked a little shell-shocked.

Dean glanced back at the shaded door of the station. She was standing behind the screen, watching them. Better than television. Dean looked around surreptitiously for a camera, then looked back at the guy who was looking at the Impala.

“The big block, yeah? Still got the Turbo Fire?”

Dean reflected that if the Impala had truly been his best girl, he was right on the line of having to punch this guy in the mouth. Dude was leering. At his car.

“Turbo Jet. 427,” Dean confirmed with only a hint of boast. The stranger raised his eyebrows and nodded. “It’s mostly intact. Seems like we’ve replaced everything a couple of times.”

“You do it yourself?”

Dean just nodded wryly. “Me and my old man, yeah.”

“Cool,” said the stranger, but like he really meant it. “Very solid.”

The guy was maybe a sliver taller than Dean, blond and blue-eyed. He wore the most nondescript t-shirt imaginable and his jeans and sneakers looked like stuff you’d buy without trying on. There really wasn’t anything particularly special about him. Not really.

And then he smiled.

When the guy smiled at him, Dean was almost tempted to step back a pace. Dean had been on the receiving end of a lot of smiles, some sad, some nervous, some wicked, some inviting. But it had been a long time since he’d seen a smile so genuine and _happy._ This guy’s mouth was, like, a foot wide.

It was as if this guy was saying, _“Hey, you’re young and strong and the sun is shining and you have this fabulous car, and cash for gas, so what could possibly go wrong and stay wrong?”_ All that with a grin.

Dean took another chomp of his Slim Jim and let himself bask in the sensation a little. He could feel his breath deepening, like his chest was relaxing a tension he hadn’t known he had. He glanced back at the station. Wow. In one day, he’d met an innocent person and a happy person. It might be some kind of omen.

“Hey, so you run out of gas?” Dean said, only a second before his doofus reflex kicked in.

The guy looked down at his red gallon gas can, glanced up at Dean and said nonchalantly, “Nah, I was just gonna….” He jerked his chin toward the other side of the street. “…burn down the V.F.W. Those old dudes are getting cocky, thought I’d take ‘em down a peg.” He narrowed his eyes vindictively at the dust-coated veteran’s hall.

Dean had to chew the inside of his mouth to keep from bursting out laughing. At last, someone who could at least be amusing while busting his chops. “And for my second stupid question: you need a ride anywhere?”

The guy looked at him, assessing. “Which way you headed?”

Dean squinted up at the sun which was steadily moving up toward ‘lunchtime’. “Don’t guess it matters. I got some time, if you need a lift.”

Handsome guy looked dubious. He twisted the cap on the gas can and then scratched the back of his head. “Might be a ways. Like twenty miles, even. Trucker who brought me here, we got to talking and I got distracted.”

Dean shrugged. “Happens. I was headed west myself.”

The guy’s eyes sharpened. “Cool, then it’s not out of your way.”

“Get in then,” Dean grinned, “Guess it’s your lucky day.”

Another blinding flash of teeth. “For sure.”

Dean wiped Slim Jim residue off his hand and proffered it. “Dean Winchester.”

The guy put down his gas can and carelessly wiped both hands on his shirt. “Brian O’Conner.”

 

Brian O’Conner levered himself into the passenger side, carefully nudging Dean’s hoard of junk to the center of the bench seat. He seemed instantly comfortable, stretching his long legs deep into the footwells under the dash. He stroked the door’s upholstery appreciatively.

He didn’t say anything about the music but nodded along approvingly to Judas Priest’s ‘You got another thing coming’ played at the appropriate volume. He stayed quiet for the four blocks that the town lasted. They passed the tire center, Reel’s Diesel and Towing, the Western Motel and then Vaughn, New Mexico vanished in the rearview.

Dean was rapidly coming to the conclusion that Brian was a very cool guy, if just a little weird.

It wasn’t really anything he said. But once they got on the open road, Brian’s face kept cracking into that megawatt smile.

Dean found it kind of distracting. Most people who found themselves having to hitch a ride twenty miles out and back to gas up would have been pissy and annoyed. This guy (Brian) just seemed almost preternaturally pleased with himself. He smiled at the horizon and beamed down at the dashboard. He seemed in thrall to some private joke that just got funnier and funnier.

Dean found himself drifting into that most familiar of Winchester states of mind: paranoia. An empty road, a dusty, podunk town, as good a place as any for things to not be as they seemed. He felt his tension tautening back up. He glanced at Brian from the far edges of his peripheral vision. If ‘Brian’ was a demon or a ghost, he was doing the best imitation of life Dean had ever seen, bar none.

Maybe some chaotic entity? Dean tightened his hand on the steering wheel. That might not be so farfetched. Something like…a Trickster. Dean glanced over at Brian and smiled blandly. Southwest was primo Trickster territory. He tried to remember everything he’d ever read, or Dad had ever said. He most definitely didn’t want to get on a Trickster’s bad side.

‘Brian’ tapped his long fingers on the car door in time with the music, unconsciously belying that he possessed a bad side. Dean muttered a protective cantrip under his breath anyway.

“You talking to me?” Brian asked. His eyes and face were as wide open as the sky.

Dean turned the music down a little and took refuge in a joke. “I must be talking to you, there ain’t nobody else here.”

Brian nodded and rolled his head on the seatback. “So I couldn’t hear you.”

“I said,” Dean covered quickly. He usually didn’t ask hitchhikers personal questions on the off chance that they might have questions of their own. “What do you do?”

At that, Brian actually laughed aloud. “That’s a good question. What do I do?”

Brian appeared to be asking the dusty highway that speared up toward the vague blue mountains ahead. Brian turned back to Dean and said wryly, “Mostly dumbass, dangerous shit.”

“Really?” For some reason, Dean could tell Brian meant it, he wasn’t just bullshitting. He offhandedly wondered if Brian might be a hunter, then dismissed the thought. Hunters weren’t typically big smilers.

Brian pursed his lips in an exaggerated ‘isn’t it a shame’ expression. “Yup, yourself?”

“The same,” Dean nodded.

“Huh,” Brian looked at him sharply. “You in the union?”

“Dues got too high,” Dean sighed.

“I hear you,” Brian clicked his tongue. Dean kept his eyes forward and let the left side of his mouth twist in amusement.

It flashed on him hard: _we are the same. We are made of similar stuff._ Mr. Demented Daredevil, meet Mr. Fuck the Consequences.

“So what brings you to Vaughn?”

“Mostly the excellent gas retailers,” Brian said slowly. Dean chuckled, and his paranoia crept into the backseat for the moment.

Dean waited for some return questions, _just passing through yourself?_ or _so where you headed?_ But Brian stayed quiet and incurious.

They continued in a more comfortable silence for another mile. The road was almost empty. Brian smiled on everything benevolently.

Dean finally broke, “I keep waiting for the punchline.”

Brian looked across the car with a quizzical expression.

“Did you get, like, _spectacularly_ laid recently?” Dean surmised. “Or win the lottery, or something?”

Brian grinned even harder. “Why?”

Dean turned away, feeling a little dizzy from the glare. “Because you are grinning like a cat that’s got the canary… and all its relatives.”

Brian shrugged, chuckled and kept grinning.

“So give, really,” Dean started to insist. Maybe Brian was slightly retarded. Or crazy.

Brian shrugged a little and rocked his head back and forth. “Yes on the laid. No on the lottery.”

Dean snorted. “Blonde or brunette?”

“’m not really one to kiss and tell,” Brian looked out the window, then glanced toward Dean and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“Oh, I see.” Dean nodded and said in his best ‘you’re a pussy’ voice. “You’re a gentleman.”

Brian cut his eyes over and smirked.

Dean held his eyes while smirking back, so Brian hitched himself down a little further in the seat and touched his tongue to his lower lip. Then he started talking.

“I like it in the morning, you know? Well, I mean….anytime, really, but you know, you get up, you piss and then you sliiiide back under the covers and the sheets are cool, but they’re all still so warm? I love that. I love to stick my face in that skin right under the ear.”

Brian touched right underneath his own ear. He leaned hard on the shelf of his palm and talked to the horizon in a slow, even voice. The voice worked its way under Dean’s skin and coiled up in the back of his throat.

“Those days that you don’t really have to be anywhere and so you can take some time…and they’re all warm and relaxed. Kind of…unresisting, you know what I mean? Maybe still half-asleep and you can touch _anywhere_ ….ticklish places, you know, like the back of the knee or that place where the muscle pulls from the hip…”

Dean closed his mouth and reopened it with a cough. He’d been taken little further than he’d expected down the information highway. “Jesus, man. What are you trying to do to me?”

“Sorry,” Brian said, not sounding sorry in the least.

“I mean…Jesus,” Dean sputtered, shifting uncomfortably. “What happened to no kiss and tell?”

“You did ask,” Brian shrugged. “But you know, that’s just the beginning.”

“Yeah?” Dean braced himself, but he was too curious to protest.

“Yeah, then say you get up, you have breakfast at some diner.”

“Pancakes,” Dean muttered, thinking of his own breakfast.

“Yeah right,” Brian smiled. “Pancakes, sausage, huevos rancheros, maybe. Bacon. Coffee. OJ.”

Dean’s stomach rumbled but the Impala covered it. “Sounds nice.”

“Yeah,” Brian looked dreamily out at the road ahead. “And then you **drive**.”

Dean waited for him to continue, glancing back at the road every few seconds. He had a feeling that if he asked a question now he would be missing out on some kind of Zen lesson, but he couldn’t help himself. “And that has you so blissed out why?”

Brian seemed to realize that he was in danger of floating off into the hippie-dippy ether. His voice sharpened. “So much of life is so complicated, right? Like, I’m sure you’ve had days that’ve turned into complete shit…”

“Uh,” Dean understated. “A few.”

Brian carelessly lounged halfway sideways, “And doesn’t it feel good to just leave it all behind?”

“Sure.” _More than you’ll ever know, my friend._

_I hope._

“So what’s this baby’s top speed?” Brian’s eyes gleamed suddenly darker.

“Whoa, fella,” Dean glanced over dubiously. “My girl’s built for stamina, the long haul.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Brian returned. “But, I mean…listen to her. She’s so _ready_. And just look around.”

Dean cast his eyes around the desert without conviction. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be looking for.

“Isn’t this road amazing?” Brian flicked his hand forward. “I mean, perfectly sealed, perfectly graded, almost perfectly straight and…”

“Empty,” they said in unison.

“C’mon,” Brian urged in a low voice. “She wants to make the ground shake for you.”

Dean cut his eyes over again. Damn, that grin was _intoxicating_. It was much more inspiring than any bullshit, macho dare. Just then the tape switched sides and Rob Halford started intoning “Breaking the law, breaking the law.” Brian laughed out loud.

Dean stomped on the pedal and the roar filled the cab, covering Brian’s laugh. As the newly-purchased gas surged through the Impala, a fierce, hot joy surged through his own veins. Brian was right; this was just what the doctor ordered. He pushed her up past 90, just past three digits, just on the edge of her shimmy-shake threshold. The engine drowned out the music and all the niggling voices in his head.

Brian was actually whooping now and Dean felt his own laughter bubble up. This was almost too awesome. The power throbbing under his hands felt like it could move the earth faster on its axis.

Brian tapped the dashboard and pointed at the road ahead. A silver blob on the horizon was rapidly coalescing into a recognizable sleek shape. The back window flashed like a signaling mirror. At this point, the road was at a stage of deserted that could be fairly described as ‘apocalyptic’. Dean slowed, feeling his girl hitch and growl as he tried to rein her in.

“Man, I’da thought twice about leaving something like that alone out here.” Dean sucked his teeth in appreciation. “I mean, even just those rims could prove a little too tempting, you know what I mean?”

Brian shrugged, “I got a good security system.”

“What, like a pit bull in your back seat?” Dean joked as they pulled up behind what he identified as a Nissan.

“Something like that,” Brian said softly, already halfway out of the door.

The Nissan’s driver side door opened… _upwards_ Dean noted. _Like gullwings_. That was really quite cool; he didn’t think they came stock like that.

The guy who rolled out also didn’t come stock. Dean could suddenly understand why Brian wasn’t too bugged about security. Big, mean-looking guy watched Dean approach with an expression on the edge between a scowl and a sneer. Where Brian had been all open, smiley friendliness, this guy was guarded with a capital G. The guy curled his thumbs under his fingers and cracked both knuckles loudly.

The weird thing about it was, Dean wasn’t quite convinced that the guy was consciously trying to intimidate him. If Brian was a lightning bolt, this guy was a thundercloud.

But the big guy just said, “’Bout time,” mildly as Brian and Dean ambled up. His voice rumbled in about the same register as the Impala.

“I can honestly say,” Dean volunteered before Brian said anything. “That we came as fast as we could. I’m Dean Winchester.” He thrust his hand out.

After a beat, the big guy gave him a firm, dignified shake. “Dom Toretto. Nice ride.”

“Pretty sweet, huh?” Brian handed off the can to Dom and turned back toward the Impala.

“Yeah, we’ve got some kind of mutual admiration society thing going on,” Dean found himself spouting. For some reason this guy made him as nervous as Brian had made him relaxed. Nervously, he kept talking. “So this doesn’t look like any other 350Z that I’ve ever seen. Those doors are ace, for starters.”

Dom rolled his eyes, “So I’m told. Worth the expense.” This comment seemed to be pointed at Brian.

“Every penny,” Brian said, unmoved.

“What else is going on here?” Dean walked to the front of the car so he could take in the whole effect.

Brian and Dom shared what looked like a meaningful glance. Dom said slowly, “You want the body mods, or everything?”

Dean put a little extra charm in his grin, “The full Monty, if you’re, uh, not in a hurry.”

Brian laughed, while Dom’s little chuckles seemed to erupt from his chest. Dom put the gas can down and had the hood open so quickly, it almost seemed like magic.

He pointed at each mod, as he inventoried. “Vortech supercharger, upgraded pulleys, belts and intercooler. Iridium plugs. Wolf cams. The trans coolers are from Permacool. Naturally, we got new valve bodies, and a torque converter and drilled the drive out to be a slap shift.”

“As you do,” Dean nodded sagely.

“Brake lines are stainless steel,” Brian chimed in. “Cross drilled and slotted rotors, upgraded throughout.”

“RC injectors,” Dom intoned. “Fuel management by Split Second.”

“Nitrous?” Dean rocked on his heels a little.

“25cl,” Dom said seriously while Brian said, “What are you fucking kidding me?”

“This is….” Dean shook his head. “Something else, man.”

Dom’s regard was heavy; it made Dean almost want to shift from foot to foot. “The exterior is mostly Veilside and Kaminari,” Dom muttered, like it was all a big bore and shut the hood gently.

“What does she run?” Dean asked, the height of casual.

Dom cut his eyes over at Brian who had cracked another of those manic-serial-killer smiles. Dom said slowly. “Well, this morning we were around 170…”

“175,” Brian interrupted.

“When we very cleverly ran out of gas,” Dom said pointedly.

“ **So worth it** ,” Brian caught Dean’s eye so they could share a nod. Dean felt his sudden stab of envy blunted by the recognition of kindred spirits. Dom made an incredulous noise, but it was good-humored.

“So can we?” Brian made some gesture that Dean couldn’t interpret. He suspected it might have been ‘gas up and go’.

Dom shook his head, “Still too hot.”

Brian caught Dean’s eye and made a gesture that Dean _could_ interpret, namely the ‘this blows’ gesture. “Fucking turbocharger.”

“Hey,” Dom’s tone got a little softer. “You do the crime, you gotta do the time, muchacho.”

Brian laughed exaggeratedly and Dean smiled, a little bemused. It had the flavor of a private joke, so he ignored it.

Dom flicked his eyes over to the Impala.

“You wanna see?” Dean offered.

“I showed you mine,” Dom said, raising his eyebrows just a very little. Dean grinned. Dom seemed like a good guy. Dean liked his self-contained competence; he found that was very rare. Bobby would really like this guy.

“You know I…”, Dean started.

“Opened the bore a bit.” Dom finished the sentence for him.

“Uh, yeah and then I…”

“Put on custom headers,” Dom nodded. “Woulda done the same.”

Dean flicked a glance at Brian who grinned and rolled his eyes. Dean cocked his head at Dom, “You psychic?”

Dom grunted (it might have been a laugh) and said, “I could hear you when you were about three miles away. I had time to think about it.”

“That trick’s a big hit at parties. You wanna Coke or something?” Brian had popped the Z’s truck and was rummaging around. He emerged with a Red Bull, victorious. Dean waved it off, but Dom made careful eye contact and muttered, “’m good.”

Dean popped the hood and Dom braced it for him. Dom folded his arms and chewed on his thumbnail very intently like he was about to prep a body for surgery.

Dom still looked guarded but yet, there was something unnervingly **active** in his stillness. He looked pumped full of a radiating heat and energy, kind of like that crowded, complicated engine of his.

Dean surveyed his own simple, formfollowsfunction engine with satisfaction. “Like it?”

“Yeah,” Dom muttered almost to himself. The heat pouring up from her was metal-scented. Brian nodded down at the engine too, but he darted the occasional glance at Dom.

“Hey, come check this out,” Dean had to almost nudge him out of a reverie. “Maybe you can help me with something.”

Dom perked up visibly and shoved himself into the passenger seat with the same ease and grace that Brian had.

“Check this,” Dean flicked the ignition and then all the lights on, shielding the dash with the side of his hand. “See how those gauges aren’t lighting up?”

“Huh, yeah,” Dom squinted down. “That last couple.”

“It’s kind of annoying, right?” Dean leaned in closer. “I’ve been fiddling with it, but I can’t get the trick. It’s not the fuses. It’s not the wires, but some connection is fucked up.”

Dom leaned back on the bench seat and chewed his lip. “I got a quick fix, last about a week, or just until you stop somewhere you can get something real done. You got any aluminum foil?”

Dean mentally inventoried the trunk. “Uhm, what if I say no?”

Dom shrugged and grinned. He called out to Brian, “Hey, Bri, you still got some gum?”

“Fucking Macgyver here, man,” Dean watched, entranced as Dom peeled foil off a gum wrapper with fingers that looked impossibly big for the task. He delicately handed the tiny silver sliver to Brian who cupped it, while Dom arched over the hot engine, almost to the firewall and jerked open the black rubberized box that fed the battery’s power to the gauges.

Dean watched Dom’s hands for a while as he gently tugged each plugged wire free and examined it. After a minute, his attention started to wander. The muscles in Dom’s back made him flex unconsciously. He wondered if Dom actually went to a gym and if he did, for how long.

And hello, hah, looked like Brian hadn’t been the only one to get lucky last night. He’d been thinking that that mark on the back of Dom’s neck had been the start of a tattoo, but at this angle, Dean could see it for what it was: a bite mark. The slightly curved, darkened line pushed a bare inch above Dom’s collar. Dean smirked to himself. The urge to say something was almost irresistible, but he held off out of respect for the Impala.

After what felt like an hour, Dom straightened, brushed the sweat off his forehead with the back of his wrist and said, “Try that.”

Dean fired her up and then flicked the gauges to life. He was rewarded with a full panel of lights, none of them even wavering. He shot a thumbs up at Dom and turned the engine off again. Dom came and flopped onto the shotgun side of the bench seat. Brian came and half-leaned on the door behind him, still sipping his Red Bull, so maybe it hadn’t been an hour.

“Thanks, man,” Dean stroked his wheel.

“Hey, you were the Good Samaritan first,” Brian pointed out.

“Whaddaya know? I guess there is such a thing as karma after all,” Dean grinned.

Dom frowned down at the dash, “You don’t still have the manual do you? I just wanna check…”

He suited actions to words and before Dean could protest, Dom had the glovebox open.

Oh shit.

Dean took deep breath, and tried on a deprecating half-smile, but Dom was just picking through the rather astonishing array of items in the glovebox, completely blank-faced. He pulled out the battered, coffee-stained manual without saying a word. Dean jerked a glance up at Brian, who was attempting to read over Dom’s shoulder also calm as a Hindu cow.

Man, these guys were some stone-cold, _sub-zero_ motherfuckers. They’d be ass-kicking hunters, Dean mused.  
Dom seemed to reassure himself on a point, “So okay, it won’t explode.” He laid the manual gently on the dash like a monk with an illustrated manuscript.

“Good to know,” Dean said lightly. “I am impressed.” He wondered if he should invite them to lunch or if that would be presuming too much. Well, he couldn’t leave without giving Dom some good-natured shit. “Hey, so you like the morning sex as much as Brian here?”

Dom had half-turned to get out of the car, when he turned back, Dean was suddenly reminded of a boa constrictor coiling up. Dom said softly, “What?” It sounded like a chasm opening up from a dark place.

Part of Dean’s brain set off ‘backup! backup!’ alarms, but the other part was encouraged by the look on Brian’s face as he took one step back and exploded into silent laughter.

“Looks like you found yourself a real wildcat,” Dean grinned and gestured salaciously at his own neck, indicating  
Dom’s love-bite. “Bet he’s a good wingman.” Indicating Brian.

Dom leaned back and Dean noticed that his teeth were set edge to edge. Dean felt a little surge of adrenaline. This was fun. Dom was apparently as prudish as Sammy. Dom turned to look at Brian, who was barely keeping upright. Dom muttered, “Wildcat?” And Brian just lost it totally, collapsing onto the dusty scree of the median, howling with laughter.

Dean snickered, because he could just almost imagine it, hitting the road with your best friend, hitting the bars and the juke joints in all the continent’s odd corners, sampling all the local talent and then being up the next morning, gone with the wind. Or the 350Z as the case was. That’d be the life, for real.

Dom turned back to Dean, eyes glittering dangerously, “So what was the question again?”

“Banging in the AM?” Dean made an expressive gesture. “You dig it?”

Dom stared for a second and touched his tongue to his lower lip, “Sure.” Pause. “I guess.” And then Dean’s ‘backup!’ alarm went haywire because Dom leaned in a couple of inches and almost purred, “Why, Dean? You got a proposition for me?”

Dean almost choked on his next chuckle. OK, so maybe he’d misread the prudishness. _Mess with the bull, you get the horns_ “OK, you officially win gay chicken, man. I am sincerely terrified at this moment.”  
Brian sounded like he was having some kind of seizure. Dom leaned back half smirk, half sneer.

“You going back to Vaughn to fill up?” Dean attempted to put the conversation back on normal footing.

Dom shrugged, “Sign said there was another station up ahead, maybe 10-15 miles. We don’t like to retrace our steps.”

“What if there’s not? What if it’s closed?” Dean asked pragmatically.

Dom jerked a thumb at Brian, “This one could find a ride in the Arctic Circle. Despite the evidence, we’re not actually in a hurry. Don’t go worrying about us.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Dean reassured him. “What’s your plan now?”

Brian had finally stopped laughing and was trying to slap the dust out of his clothes. “We wait for the engine to cool some more, then feed the gas slowly so it doesn’t…”

“…fuck up the turbocharger,” Dom said in counterpoint.

“How much longer, you think then?” Dean’s stomach growled. Lunchtime for sure.

“Maybe half an hour,” Dom hefted himself off of the bench seat and half-smiled at Dean over the hardtop. “Forty-five minutes.”

“You want me to wait with you?” Dean felt a little weird as he said it. Brian grinned.

Dom’s face went serious, but his eyes smiled, “Nah, we wouldn’t wanna slow you down. Thanks though, man.”

“Thanks for the ride, bro,” Brian slapped his hand into Dean’s. “Vaya con Dios, or whatever.”

“Back atcha,” Dean nodded at Dom. “You wanna pack of cards for the wait?”

Dom scratched his eyebrow meditatively. “S’okay. I’m sure we’ll think of something to do.”

**********

Dean watched the sliver of silver recede and vanish into the dusty rose brown in his rearview. The gas station in Encino was open, he was pleased to note. He got on the 40, feeling strangely muted, like he’d been living in color that had faded to sepia.

After Flagstaff he gave in to temptation and turned north onto old Route 66. Around sunset that evening a flash of silver passed him so fast that the Impala shook like it was in a wind tunnel. He grinned to himself, goosed the accelerator and made the ground shake. He couldn’t catch up, maybe, but he would be damned if he didn’t give it a try.

t. End


End file.
